How the level of integration of the fantastic element into the fictional world influences reading – The Left Hand of Darkness, Dominion, Look Who's Back, and The Book Thief

The aim of this paper is to show a correlation between the level of integration of the fantastic element into the structure of the fictional world and the potential of literary works to be successfully read as both fantastic literature and non-genre literature, valuable for their meaning, transcendence and art of narration. It will introduce four levels of integration of the fantastic element and focus on two neighbouring levels: the fantastic element used as a platform and as a resource. Using four specific examples, I will try to distinguish very different attitudes toward the fantastic element and to argue that literary works using the fantastic element merely as a resource for expressing something else do not necessarily indicate failed fantasy, but create a specific fuzzy set within fantastic literature, which I call the fantastic as a means of expression (and which might be distinguished from the fuzzy set of the pure fantastic, characterised by the full contextualisation of the fantastic element within the fictional world). In contrast, using the example of Dominion by C. J. Sansom, I will point out that when the fantastic element is used as a platform but without adequate contextualisation within the fictional world the text fails as fantastic literature; however, it preserves its potential to express meaning and and its artistic merit.